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Ysmay had lost her sense of direction, for they had turned this way and that. However, by midmorn, there came a wind which carried a new scent. A man-at-arms had been detailed to ride with her (for Hylle accompanied the wagon). She heard him say, “That is a sea wind!”

They came down into a cut between ridges which ran as straight as if it marked an old road. The ridges banked away the wind, though here the snow piled deeper.

Suddenly the path curved and the right-hand ridge fell away, placing the travelers on a ledge. Cliffs glittered with the accumulation of salt crystals. The sea pounded below. Strangest sight of all was a wider section of ledge where the wind had scoured away the snow to clear three great stone chairs, carved from rock certainly not by nature but by intention. Each bore upon its seat a pillow of snow, softening its harsh austerity.

Ysmay recognized another ancient work of the Old Ones. Now she was sure that they were following a road.

Once more the way turned, this time inland. They saw ahead among the rocky cliffs a structure which seemed a part of its stony setting. It arose by wall and tower to dwarf any Dale-hold.

Hylle loomed out of the fine shifting of snow. With the stock of his whip he pointed to the vast pile.

“Quayth, my lady.”

She realized with a chill that her new home was one of the ancient remains. And, contrary to all the precautions and beliefs of her own people, she must dwell in a shell alien to her kind. But there was no turning back. She made an effort not to show her unease.

“It is very large, my lord.”

“In more ways than one, my lady.” His eyes held, searched her face as they had at the first meeting in the merchant’s booth—as if fiercely he willed her to reveal the fear which lay within her. But that she would not do. In a moment he spoke again.

“It is one of the ancient places, which the Old Ones had the building of. But time has been kinder to it than to most such. You will find it not lacking in comfort. Ha—let us home!”

Their weary mounts broke into a trot. Soon they passed the overhang of a great, darksome gate into a vast courtyard whose walls had towers set at four corners.

Two of those towers were round. That through which the gate opened was square. The fourth displayed odd sharp angles, unlike any she had seen before.

Though there were faint gleams of light in some of the narrow windows, no one was here to bid them welcome. Troubled, she came stiffly out of the saddle into Hylle’s hold, and stumbled through beginning drifts of snow under his guidance to the door at the foot of the nearest round tower. The others scattered through the courtyard in different directions.

Here there was rest from the wind, the heartening blaze of a fire.

To Ysmay’s surprise, instead of a thick matting of rushes and dried herbs on the floor, she saw a scattering of mats and rugs of fur stitched together in fanciful patterns, light matched to dark.

These formed roads and pathways across the stone, the main one leading to an island of warm cheer by the hearth. There stood two tall-backed chairs, cushioned with pads of colorful stuff, even having small canopies above to give the final measure of protection against wandering drafts. There was also a table with platters and flagons. Hylle brought Ysmay to the blaze where she loosed her cloak and held her hands thankfully toward the warmth.

A musical note startled her. She turned her head. He had tapped a bell that hung in a carved framework on the table. Soon a figure came down the winding stair which must serve as a spine for the tower.

Not until the newcomer reached the fire could Ysmay make out who it was. Then she caught her lip that she might not utter her instinctive protest.

For this creature, whose head was level with her own shoulder, was that Ninque who had told the gabbled fortune at the very beginning of this change in her Me. Only now the seeress did not wear her fancifully embroidered robe, but rather a furred and sleeveless jerkin over an undertunic and skirt of rusty brown. Her head was covered with a close-fitting cap which fastened with a buckle under her flabby chin. She looked even less likely as a bower woman than as a prophetess.

“Greetings, Lord—Lady.” Once more that soft voice came as a shock from the obese body. “By good fortune you have outrun the first of the bad storms.”

Hylle nodded. When he spoke it was to Ysmay.

“Ninque will serve you, Lady. She is very loyal to my interests.” There was an odd emphasis in his words. Ysmay was intent only on the fact that he intended to leave her with this oddling.

She lost pride enough to start to lay her hand in appeal on his arm. But in time she bethought herself and did not complete the gesture. He was already at the outer door before she could summon voice.

“You do not rest—sup—here, my lord?”

There was a glitter in his eyes which warned her. “The master of Quayth has one lodging, and none troubles him in it. You will be safe and well cared for here, my lady.” And with that he was gone.

Ysmay watched the door swing shut behind him. Again the dark question filled her mind. Why had he brought her here? What did he need or want of her?

4

Ysmay stood at a narrow slit of window, looking down into the courtyard. The tracks below made widely separated patterns. In a pile constructed to house a host, there seemed to be a mere handful of indwellers. Yet this was the eve of Midwinter Day. In all the holds of the Dales there would be preparation for feasting. Why should men not rejoice at the shortest day of the frigid winter when tomorrow would mean the slow turn to spring?

However, in Quayth there were no visitors, no such preparations. Nor did Ninque and the two serving wenches (squat and alien as herself) appear to understand what Ysmay meant when she asked what they were to do. Of Hylle she had seen little. She learned that he dwelt in the tower of sharp angles and that not even his men-at-arms—who had their quarters in the gate tower—ventured there, though some of the hooded men came and went.

Now when she looked back at her hopes, to be ruler of the household here, she could have laughed, or rather wept (if stubborn pride would have allowed her) for the wide-eyed girl who hoped she rode to freedom when she left Uppsdale.

Freedom! She was close-pent as a prisoner. Ninque, as far as Ysmay could learn, was the true chatelaine of Quayth. At least Ysmay had had the wit and wariness to go very slow in trying to assume mistressship here. She had not had any humiliating refusal of the few orders she had given. She had been careful not to give many, and those for only the simplest matters concerning her own needs.

This was at least a roomy prison, no narrow dungeon cell. On the ground floor was the big room which had seemed a haven of warmth at her first entrance. Above that was this room in which she stood, covering the whole area of the tower, with a circling open stair leading both up and down. Above were two bare chambers, cold and drear, without furnishing or signs of recent usage.

Here in this second chamber there was a bed curtained with hangings on which the needle-worked pictures were so dim and faded by time that she could distinguish little of the patterns, save that here and there the face of a dimmed figure, by some trick of lamp or firelight, would flare into vivid life for an instant or two, startling her.

There was one which appeared to do this more often than the rest. Thinking of it, Ysmay turned from the window, went to that part of the hanging and spread it with one hand while she fingered the face. This time it was dim, features blurred. Yet only a short time ago she had looked up from the hearth and it had given her a start as if a person stood there watching her with brooding earnestness.

She could close her eyes and see it feature for feature—a human face, which was better than some of the others flickering into life there at night. Some had an alien cast as if their human aspect were but a mask, worn above a very different countenance. This one was human, and something about it haunted her. Perhaps her memory played tricks but she remembered a desperate need in its expression.